Lena Dunham has shared the emotional first words she whispered to her baby daughter after welcoming her through surrogacy.
The actress and writer announced that she and her husband, Luis Felber, had become parents for the first time in a personal Vogue essay. Dunham recalled that a midwife urged her to speak to the newborn shortly after her arrival.
She remembered greeting her daughter by saying: “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 chose to have a total hysterectomy in 2018 following years of severe pain caused by endometriosis, ending the possibility of conceiving and carrying a child herself.
Lena Dunham has opened up about the first words she said to her newborn daughter, whom she welcomed via surrogate. Pictured at the Met Gala in May.
The baby is the first child for the 40-year-old actress and writer and British musician Luis Felber, whom she married in 2021. Dunham underwent a total hysterectomy in 2018. The couple are pictured in 2022.
Earlier this year, Dunham discussed the difficult process of accepting that she would not be able to carry her own children—a future she said had always been part of her “dream.”
After years of ongoing health struggles, she decided to have her uterus, cervix and one ovary removed. Dunham said she did not fully grasp the emotional impact of that decision until after the operation.
Speaking on Today with Jenna and Sheinelle in April, she said: “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
RELATED: Woman Punches Dog Walker, Then Spits at Her in Street Clash
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.