Lena Dunham welcomes first child with husband Luis Felber via surrogate… eight years after hysterectomy

Lena Dunham has welcomed her first child via surrogate.

The 40-year-old Girls creator and husband Luis Felber announced that they had welcomed a new child in an op-ed for Vogue published Wednesday morning.

Dunham had kept relatively quiet about her hopes to become a parent after she underwent a hysterectomy in 2018.

The actress and writer made the difficult decision to have a total hysterectomy to remove her uterus and cervix and an ovary after enduring years of endometriosis-related pain.

Dunham married Peruvian-British musician Felber in a low-key London ceremony back in September 2021. 

Felber previously revealed how they were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend and got on so well on their first meeting that they ‘didn’t stop talking for eight hours’. 

The pair met in Covid-19 lockdown so for their first date they took a walk along the River Thames together at night as the pubs were shut at the time.  

Lena 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.’

In 2018, Dunham had opened up about her decision to have a hysterectomy. 

A hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus, and often the cervix, fallopian tubes, and ovaries according to the Cleveland Clinic. The procedure completely and permanently prevents pregnancy.

Dunham said to Vogue in March 2018 that her decision came after ‘years of complex surgeries measuring in the double digits’ and trying alternative treatments such as ‘pelvic floor therapy, massage therapy, pain therapy, color therapy, acupuncture and yoga’. 

Doctors discovered she had other medical issues that were causing her pain during the procedure.

‘In addition to endometrial disease, an odd hump-like protrusion and a septum running down the middle, I have retrograde bleeding, a.k.a. my period running in reverse so that my stomach is full of blood,’ she wrote.

‘My ovary has settled in on the muscles around the sacral nerves in my back that allow us to walk. Let’s please not even talk about my uterine lining. The only beautiful detail is that the organ — which is meant to be shaped like a light bulb — was shaped like a heart.’ 

Dunham said at the time that she was keen to explore other options to have a child as she explained: ‘I may have felt choiceless before, but I know I have choices now.’

Lena had previously dated musician Jack Antonoff from the bands fun and Bleachers as they broke up before she underwent her hysterectomy. 

They had dated for five years from 2012 to 2017 before their split, which was described as ‘amicable’ at the time.