All her adult life, Alexandra Soiseth wanted a husband, children, dogs and cats, and a loving, home. But at 39, with no husband on the horizon, she decided to take matters into her own hands: she googled for sperm.

In Choosing You: Deciding to Have a Baby on My Own, Alexandra shows that with a little guts, a lot of love — and the internet — almost anything is possible.

One of my favorite parts is when Alexandra is trying to decide whether Olaf or Boris will be the father of her child. Olaf is six feet tall, 140 pounds, blond, and left-handed. He has a Masters, but not a PhD. He likes German Shepards.

Boris, on the other hand, is 5' 8? and 170 pounds. He has brown hair. He’s working on his PhD. He includes a hand-written note in his profile about wanting to help families have children.

You’ll have to read the book to find out which guy Alexandra chooses!

Today, Alexandra’s daughter, Kaj, is four. I couldn’t help but ask Alexandra about the “Daddy question.” Has Kaj asked any questions?

“We were at the water park last Sunday and there were a lot of kids with their dads,” Alexandra says. “Kaj was playing with this little boy and his dad. The next thing I knew, she was going down the slide by herself, saying to no one in particular, ‘See Daddy!’ and ‘Look Daddy!’ ”

When Alexandra tells me, “This is how she was processing,” I get it. At age 4, Mae used to love to play with dolls. One of her friends would hold up a doll and say, “This one is the Daddy” and Mae often protested, kindly pushing the Daddy doll away: “There is no Daddy. She has a Mommy.”

Alexandra, like many of us as single parents, has created her own family with a loving, supportive group of friends who live nearby.

Nowadays, when Alexandra asks Kaj, “Who’s in our family?, she says, ‘You and me live in this house, and then there’s Pat’ [close friend]… She loves them so much, she talks about them as her family.”

Tell us who’s in your family. Perhaps your own father/brother has become a father-figure for your son. Or, maybe your best friend down the street is truly an aunt. How have they become your family? This also reminds me of my favorite kid’s book on this topic: Who’s in a Family?, by Robert Skutch. It even has a photo album at the end to paste photos of your family!

Your turn! Who’s in your family, kin and more?