Hey Kelly. I am also a newbie. I don't seem to have a lot of dexterity in my fingers.

At the risk of being chastised by the others and creating "bad habits" for you, here is how I dealt with the f chord.

Instead of using the tip of my index finger to cover E & B string, I extend my index finger almost like a bar chord and cover them with the fat part of the third joint.

So far this seems to work well. As a new player I wonder if I might run into problems later. So far so good.

Good luck.