Lena Dunham, the 40-year-old writer and actress best known for creating and starring in the HBO series Girls, has welcomed her first child with her husband, Luis Felber, through a surrogate. In an op-ed published in Vogue on Wednesday, Dunham shared the emotional journey of becoming a mother for the first time. Her daughter was born 13 days after her expected due date, and Dunham described the intense emotions she felt during the birth, particularly her focus on the surrogate who carried the child. Dunham wrote about the moment she first saw her daughter, describing how she was so focused on the surrogate that she didn’t look down until she heard the 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. Dunham greeted her daughter with a mix of awe and emotion, saying, "‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m your mama. You … 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.’" She described feeling "bashful and dizzy with joy" in that moment. Dunham has long spoken about the challenges she faced with fertility. She has struggled with advanced endometriosis for nearly two decades, a condition that causes chronic pelvic pain and can affect fertility. At 31, she underwent a total hysterectomy, which involves the removal of the uterus, cervix, and one of her ovaries. This experience deeply impacted her perspective on motherhood and her journey to parenthood. In a 2020 essay for Harper’s Magazine, Dunham reflected on her decision to step away from the "fertility-industrial complex" after an unsuccessful in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle. She described how the loss of her fertility shifted her focus from expecting motherhood as a natural progression to an urgent desire. After her surgery, she became intensely focused on the idea of becoming a mother, which eventually led her to the path of surrogacy.