Lena Dunham and husband Luis Felber welcome their first child via surrogacy
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Actress and writer Lena Dunham is now a mother!
Dunham and her musician husband, Luis Felber, have welcomed a baby daughter via a surrogate. The baby girl was born 13 days after her due date.
The 'Girls' creator shared her emotions in an op-ed published by Vogue on Wednesday, September 16. In it, she recalled the moment, saying, “I forgot to look down until I heard our baby’s cry.”
Lena Dunham was 'bashful and dizzy with joy' after arrival of baby girl
Dunham opened up about the emotional moment, writing, “I was so focused on our surrogate, in awe at her concentration, her period of quiet followed by what sounded like a roar. I saw her face, gasping just as she did. Her eyes, wide and unfocused, taking in the light and shadow, blinking rapidly.” Dunham said she was “bashful and dizzy with joy.”
“Hello,” she recalled. “I’m your mama. You... you look nothing like I thought you would, but exactly right. We’ve been waiting for you, do you know that? It was so nice of you to come.”
She couldn’t hold back her emotions and said, “She seemed to fix her gaze on me. Just as someday I hope she will fix her gaze at herself in the mirror, point to her Cacharel dress in muted Liberty florals and say, ‘Mama, I don’t want to wear this today.’ Maybe no day. They’re hers to love or hate, covet or reject. It’s all hers now.”
“Powerless and unable to feel the physical changes that signal a growing fetus, I horrified friends and family who adhere to the Jewish superstition prohibiting anticipatory purchases, and I started shopping,” wrote Dunham.
“I was looking for garments that allowed her personality to develop and express itself rather than announcing an identity she didn’t yet have,” she said.
Lena Dunham opens up about her hysterectomy and surrogacy journey
In 2018, the actress and writer revealed that she had a hysterectomy to end the pain caused by endometriosis. The surgery involved removing her cervix and uterus, which meant she was unable to conceive naturally.
On meeting her surrogate, Dunham wrote in the Vogue piece, “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 added that she felt a different kind of jealousy toward the baby and the surrogate, “for the chance to be tucked into someone who radiated such safety. I could just tell she knew how to steer an SUV in the snow,” Dunham added.
