Betty (OP), good post! Very useful for all new divers.
As a new diver myself (certified about 6 months ago, ~40 dives so far), I've had the same concerns. I started out WAY overweighted, carrying something like 17lb of lead when I first did my Open Water (3mm full wetsuit, Al 80)!! I've got that down to 6lb of lead now (3mm full wetsuit, 0.5mm/2mm hooded vest, Al 80) and I've even done a few on 4lb but it gets a wee dodgy towards the very end of the dive.
I suspect a fair bit of that is due to my wetsuit getting less buoyant over time but also, learning to relax underwater has made a HUGE difference to my enjoyment of diving (plus my air consumption improved immeasurably).
The key to all of this was, of course, buoyancy control; Using breathing to control buoyancy instead of constantly inflating/deflating the BC. Unless I'm going deeper than 25m, I find I don't even need to inflate my BC (which makes me suspect I'm still overweighted somewhat?). And having now gone on a few rec dives with some Tec-divers, I'm more focused than ever on achieving good buoyancy control!