After my extremely complicated situation has maybe finally ended with me deciding that I need to be strong enough to let go and move on for my son to someone better... I have decided that I should try and get myself easily back into dating new people. I'm in a new place, new high school, and I'd really like to be able to gain confidence in myself and be able to talk to more people.

So, enough of my always familiar rambling....

Do you girls have any advice on howto start dating? How to introduce your child to someone?

Hi Autumn,

First of all, I want to commend your strength. I've read some of your posts here on the site, and you sound like such a motivated, strong, StandUpGirl!

To give you a little bit of background on me... I got pregnant when I was 16, was in total shock, and after much inner debate, I knew that I had to keep my baby. Her father (my high school boyfriend) and I didn't work out, and I wanted to be with someone, and I wanted my daughter to have a stable father figure in her life.

I won't lie, there were some periods of time when I figured that I would be a single mom forever. I went through some time of resentment when I couldn't financially provide things for my daughter because we were trying to survive on one income.

I clearly remember taking her to the doctor once when she was an infant, and I was trying to juggle a vomiting, screaming, feverish baby, the gigantic diaper bag, and a bulky car seat, and I dropped and spilled a bottle of hard earned breast milk in the parking lot. There was a picture perfect family who pulled up in a car next to mine, a perfect SUV, a nice looking man and woman, smiling and laughing, and all the woman had to do was carry the baby. That memory really sticks out to me. After we got out of that doctor's appointment, I sat in the front seat of my car and rocked Emily and cried. I felt guilty, like I was letting her down by not having someone. I felt angry at her father, because he wasn't doing his part.

I tell you all of this, so that you will know, that your feelings are so normal. It is a long, hard, road. But things will work out. My biggest advice would be to just wait and be patient. I had to deal with my feelings and my anger toward my daughter's father, and with myself before I was really ready to share my heart with someone else again, even though I didn't realize it at the time.

I worked on my relationship with God, and I knew that God had someone out there, just for me, and for my daughter, too. I tried to be patient and just wait. I ended up falling in love with one of my good friends. It's always important to be friends first, and this guy was different from anyone else I ever dated. We met when my daughter was about 18 months old, and married when she was 3 years old. My daughter is 6 now, and my husband is amazing. Every day is a blessing.

Just hang in there, and pray about it. Focus on you and your baby, and things will fall in place when the time is right. Email me if I can ever help, ok?

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Thank you so much for telling me your story.

It's so hard to be patient, and I'm trying to take it day by day now. I'll catch myself thinking "what if?..." and sometimes I even wonder if I'm going insane, lol. But I've started thinking about your words and have realized that there's much better days to come and I should spend this time focusing on Caden and my studies, and building a better life for myself and my son. I think you're definitely right. I need to strengthen my relationships and truly forgive everything and figure out where my place really is in the world before I can be ready to commit to someone, as hard as it is to wait. My only problem is that I'll realize this, and sometimes I won't be strong enough to carry it out... I mean I've realized a hundred times that I should just let go of my ex, but I still keep coming back to him. Not physically, but you get the idea. I just can't seem to be strong enough to let go, and stop talking like we used to and leave it only at our son. He won't do it, either, but it makes it harder on me. It just makes me miss him more and feel more hopeless, to be honest. But at the same time, it helps. I just don't understand anything with him...

i was in the same situation. i got pregnant at 15, the father of mi son took off the day i told him i was pregnant. for three months of pregnancy i was single. just trying to get through highschool and get everything ready for my baby. my parents were no hel because they disapproved of me being pregnant. anyways, i finally found a guy who accepted the fact that i was pregnant and it wasnt his kid. so we started dating and he was there as my sons father figure for 3 years. we got engaged and things fell apart. he was always known as "daddy" because he was there from the beginning. well now that were not togeht he is still in mi sons if but only when its convient to him. i moved on and got married and again things didnt work out and yet another "daddy" was taken from my son. now i am currently in a serous relationship with a guy i pray will be with me forever. *he is nothing like the last two* and the one thing i make sure of is to let scott know that no matter who i am with its not his daddy.

the point behind this story is to help you see that yes you should make sure the person your dating is in your childs life but dont let her/him get attached if you dont feel he is going to be there forever.

my son will be turning 3 on Sept.19 and he has 1 dad and don *mi current fiancee* and thats all he needs.