Lena Dunham 'dizzy with joy' as she announces birth of first baby via surrogacy
Lena Dunham had a hysterectomy when she was 31 and has suffered with endometriosis, impacting her plans to have a family
Lena Dunham, creator of the hit TV series Girls, has welcomed her first child via a surrogate.
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The 40-year-old announced the birth of her daughter with her husband Luis Felber.
The writer and actress said she was "bashful and dizzy with joy" after has previously speaking out about her struggle with fertility and chronic illness.
She had a hysterectomy when she was 31 years old, and has suffered with endometriosis, impacting her plans to have a family.
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Of meeting her surrogate, she wrote in Vogue: "While I've been known to make friends quickly - airport terminals, veterinary offices - this was the quickest leap from first coffee to gynecological procedure I'd ever done."
She said her daughter announced herself "13 days late, in the face of a solar eclipse and a meteor shower".
"I sat on a hospital bed, between the legs of a woman I hadn't known a year ago, waiting for a glimpse of this person who I had been waiting for with something related to patience, but also none at all," she wrote.
"I forgot to look down until I heard our baby's cry. I saw her face, gasping just as she did. Her eyes, wide and unfocused, taking in the light and shadow, blinking rapidly."
In her memoir Famesick, which was published in April 2026, she wrote "the moment I lost my fertility, I started searching for a baby".
Dunham opened up about extracting her eggs during the pandemic and searching for alternative options to have children.
She said she was "one day obsessed with adoption and another, dying to locate a surrogate - one day sure I'd be fine if I never had children, and the next convinced my life had been a waste".
The actress has since told the Times that she and her husband were "in the process of expanding our family in new ways".
"I want to safely meet our children and then figure out how to talk about it".