Lena Dunham and husband Luis Felber welcome first baby via surrogate
Lena Dunham and husband Luis Felber welcome first baby via surrogate
Shelby StivaleWed, September 16, 2026 at 2:32 PM UTC
2
Luis Felber and Lena Dunham in June 2025Credit: Jason Mendez/GettyKey Points -
Lena Dunham and husband Luis Felber welcomed their first child via surrogate.
The Girls star and creator announced the birth of her daughter Wednesday in an essay written for Vogue.
Dunham and Felber have been married since 2021.
Lena Dunham is a mom!
The Girls star and creator announced on Wednesday that she and husband Luis Felber had welcomed a daughter via surrogate. Dunham shared the news in an essay written for Vogue, in which she detailed her journey to motherhood.
“Like a kid who wasn’t sure if their schoolmates would arrive for the birthday party, I was bashful and dizzy with joy,” Dunham wrote about meeting her daughter for the first time. “She seemed to fix her gaze on me.”
Vogue shared the first photo of Dunham’s daughter on Wednesday via Instagram. The actress was all smiles while holding her baby as Felber carried their dog in his right arm and kissed the top of Dunham’s head. A second image showed a hospital band that read, “Baby Lena.” (Dunham and the musician have been married since 2021.)
Lena Dunham and Luis Felber in 2022Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage
Dunham has been open about her decision to have a hysterectomy at age 31, writing about her long-time health struggles in the memoir, Famesick, which was released earlier this year. In Wednesday’s essay, Dunham reflected on the relationship she created with her surrogate.
“In the months before the embryo transfer date, as I got to know our surrogate and to trust her, the feelings I thought would be there somehow weren’t: namely jealousy, that this woman could do for a child—for my child—what I could not,” Dunham wrote. “Carry her safely in her body, use her form to feed and house her, regulate the baby’s ever-evolving nervous system with steadiness, heart, and breath.”
Advertisement
Dunham admitted to feeling “a different kind of jealousy” toward her unborn child. “For the chance to be tucked into someone who radiated such safety,” she wrote. “I could just tell she knew how to steer an SUV in the snow.”
The former HBO star noted that her “desire” to be a mother “hadn’t prepared” her for the reality.
“But she was preparing herself, inside our surrogate’s strong and healthy body, and as the clothes stacked up in the box, so did some sense that she was becoming real,” Dunham wrote of her daughter. “These would be her clothes. She would be a person that we helped to dress, who made an impression on the world based on our choices, until she was old enough to do it herself.”
Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.
Their daughter was born 13 days after her due date. Dunham recounted her time in the hospital, writing that she was “so focused” on their surrogate and “in awe” of her.
“I forgot to look down until I heard our baby’s cry. I saw her face, gasping just as she did. Her eyes, wide and unfocused, taking in the light and shadow, blinking rapidly,” she wrote, in part. “For the moment, she wriggled in my hands, slick as a seal, naked as the day she was born.”
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
