COUPLESVulnerable Lena Dunham Says She Felt 'Powerless' During Surrogacy Journey as She Welcomes Baby With Husband Luis Felber During U.S. Stay
Lena Dunham and Luis Felber welcomed their first child after nearly five years of marriage.
Sept. 16 2026, Published 12:24 p.m. ET
Lena Dunham is a mother!
The Girls actress, 40, revealed that she and her husband, Luis Felber, welcomed their first child via surrogate and opened up about the anxiety-filled process in an op-ed for Vogue published on Wednesday, September 16.
Lena Dunham Opened Up on Surrogacy Journey
Lena Dunham and Luis Felber got married in September 2021.
"All there was to do was wait. Track milestones, continue calculating, try not to allow ourselves to become too attached to this person who was really just an idea," Dunham recalled. "My husband was better at the waiting, but he hadn’t spent the last 12 years circling the fertility drain, and he offered as many hopeful assurances as he could without making false promises."
Dunham has frequently spoken about her health struggles, including her decision to undergo a hysterectomy at 31 in 2017 due to severe endometriosis, a painful condition affecting the uterus.
Lena Dunham Said She Felt 'Powerless'
Lena Dunham revealed she got a hysterectomy at 31 in 2017.
As the couple, who married in 2021, waited for their baby girl to be born, Dunham admitted that she felt "powerless" as she was "unable to feel the physical changes of a growing fetus."
The American Horror Story actress explained that by the seventh month of the pregnancy, she started to feel "insane," constantly asking herself, "If I was pregnant, would I be doing this? How about this? And this?"
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The Baby Girl Arrived 13 Days Past Her Due Date
Lena Dunham and Luis Felber welcomed their daughter in the U.S. but were planning to head back to their home in London.
"The answer was that I had no idea," she confessed.
Dunham said that her daughter arrived 13 days past her due date, "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."
Lena Dunham Said She Was 'Expanding Her Family in New Ways'
Lena Dunham revealed she was in the 'process' of growing her family in June 2025.
Dunham and Felber, 40, reportedly welcomed the child in the States but planned to return to their home in North London, per Page Six.
The Camping star first teased in June 2025 that she was in the "process of expanding her family in new ways," but remained tight-lipped on the details.
"I want to safely meet our children and then figure out how to talk about it," she told The Times at the time.
