Lena Dunham reveals her first words to newborn baby born by surrogate after heartbreak of endometriosis ended her ‘dream’ of carrying a child
Lena Dunham has revealed the first words she spoke to her baby girl who was born by surrogate.
Announcing the news that she and husband Luis Felber had welcomed their first child, she wrote in an op-ed for Vogue that the midwife had encouraged her to talk to the newborn.
And she shared how she had welcomed the infant: ‘Hello. I’m your mama. 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.’
‘I meant it,’ Dunham added. ‘Like a kid who wasn’t sure if their schoolmates would arrive for the birthday party, I was bashful and dizzy with joy.’
Dunham gave up any possibility of conceiving and giving birth to a child after electing to undergo a total hysterectomy in 2018 due to years of endometriosis-related pain.
Lena Dunham has revealed the first words she said to her newborn baby girl after welcoming the child via surrogate. Above, at the Met Gala in May
The baby is the first child for the actress and writer, 40, who underwent a total hysterectomy in 2018, and British musician Luis Felber whom she married in 2021. Above, the couple in 2022
Earlier this year Dunham spoke about coming to terms with not being able to carry her own children, which had always been her ‘dream.’
She made the decision to have her womb, cervix and an ovary removed after enduring chronic health issues and she acknowledged that it was ‘only in the aftermath of the surgery that I started to feel the weight of what had happened.’
She explained on Today with Jenna and Sheinelle in April: ‘Some people don’t dream about being mothers, but I had, and it was a big part of my identity that I was going to do it someday in that way.
‘The amazing thing is, since then, I have met so many people who built their families in so many different ways, and I have really come to a place where I feel really excited. Whatever way it happens, I will feel so grateful.’
In Wednesday’s article, Dunham reflected on her journey through surrogacy and praised her surrogate.
The Girls creator said she had not been ‘jealous’ of the woman who carried her child through pregnancy.
‘Instead, I felt a different kind of jealousy — toward said baby, 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 revealed last year that she and Felber were in the process of ‘expanding’ their family and in sharing their happy news, Wednesday, declared she was’bashful and dizzy with joy
The Girls creator shared she had welcomed her baby with the words: ‘Hello. I’m your mama… We’ve been waiting for you, do you know that?’ Above, Dunham in New York on September 11
In June last year, Dunham told The Sunday Times that her hysterectomy ‘was a grief but it was also a relief.’
And she revealed that she and British musician Felber, 40, were in the process of ‘expanding’ their family ‘in new ways.’
In 2020, two years after the hysterectomy, Dunham shared her thoughts on the process of trying to become a mother while unable to conceive or carry her own baby.
In an essay for Harper’s Magazine, she acknowledged how expensive the process is as well as the mental toll it takes.
‘There is a lot you can correct in life—you can end a relationship, get sober, get serious, say sorry—but you can’t force the universe to give you a baby that your body has told you all along was an impossibility,’ Dunham wrote.
‘Weak animals die in the woods as their pack mates run ahead. Bad eggs don’t hatch. You can’t bend nature.
‘The irony is that knowing I cannot have a child—my ability to accept that and move on—may be the only reason I deserve to be anyone’s parent at all. I think I finally have something to teach somebody.’
The Girls creator underwent a total hysterectomy in 2018 after enduring years of pain due to endometriosis, leaving her unable to conceive or carry a child. Above, in 2018
Dunham and Felber met during the Covid-19 lockdown and for their first date they took a walk together along the River Thames at night.
Dunham first revealed she was dating Felber during an interview with The New York Times back in April 2021.
‘It’s been a few months. I feel really lucky,’ she said, adding that Felber was, ‘the greatest person I’ve ever met.’
She was previously in a relationship with musician Jack Antonoff from 2012 to 2017. from the bands fun and Bleachers as they broke up before she underwent her hysterectomy.
