Lena Dunham, the 40-year-old writer and actor best known for creating and starring in HBO's Girls, has welcomed her first child, a daughter, with her husband Luis Felber via a surrogate. She announced the birth in a personal essay published in Vogue on Wednesday, describing the emotional moment of hearing her baby's first cry while focused on the surrogate giving birth. The news matters as a milestone in Dunham's long and public struggle with infertility caused by severe endometriosis.

Dunham has previously written candidly about her fertility journey, including a 2020 Harper's Magazine essay in which she described undergoing a total hysterectomy at the age of 31, having her uterus, cervix and one ovary removed after nearly two decades of chronic pain from the condition. That surgery followed an unsuccessful round of IVF, after which she said she stepped away from what she called the "fertility-industrial complex". Her daughter was born 13 days after her due date, and Dunham described feeling "bashful and dizzy with joy" upon meeting her.