Lena Dunham has welcomed her first child with her musician husband Luis Felber via a surrogate.
The 40-year-old actress and screenwriter underwent a hysterectomy at 31 because of a long-term struggle with endometriosis.
The Girls creator revealed the baby arrived 13 days late while detailing her path to parenthood in an essay for Vogue.
She wrote: “The waiting was harder to accept. As the clock wound down, something that was once theoretical became urgent.
“I studied the ultrasound images like a ghost hunter, looking for any signs of who she might be, of what she might already know.
“In one, I swore she was almost winking at the camera. But in the daytime, I knew it was just a bit of contrast, a trick of the light.
“In the face of a solar eclipse and a meteor shower, she announced herself.”
She went on to describe how she felt “bashful and dizzy with joy” when her baby was born.
Dunham said: “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.
“I saw her face, gasping just as she did.
“Her eyes, wide and unfocused, taking in the light and shadow, blinking rapidly.”
Dunham wrote and starred in the hit HBO series Girls, which ran for six seasons from 2012 and made stars out of the cast, including herself, Adam Driver and Allison Williams.
The show was controversial for its frank depiction of sex and Dunham frequently appeared nude or partially clothed in the show.
She was also behind the Netflix series Too Much about an American woman in her 30s who relocates to London and falls in love with a British musician – mirroring her life and romance to her husband, who she married in 2021.
Earlier this year, Dunham was labelled a “genius” by Taylor Swift for her speech during the singer’s wedding to Travis Kelce.
Dunham’s risqué jokes drew “gasps and laughs” from guests but were hailed by Swift.
Dunham, 40, and Swift, 36, have been close friends since the early 2010s when Dunham was dating Swift’s musical collaborator Jack Antonoff.
Swift later served as a bridesmaid at Dunham’s wedding to Felber in 2021.
