Meredith Grey

Meredith Grey was born to Ellis Grey and Thatcher Grey. She is an only child and spent the early part of her childhood in Seattle, where her mother was completing her residency at Seattle Grace Hospital. She too became a doctor at SGH where she developed her skills and made best friends such as Cristina Yang and boyfriends such as Derek Shepherd.

Childhood and growing up
Her parents' marriage was troubled, due in large part to the fact that her mother had an affair that lasted years with colleauge, Richard Webber. Their marital issues proved too great and Thatcher left the home when Meredith was five years old.

As a young child, Meredith witnessed Richard ending her mother's affair with him while she was riding a carousel. Shortly thereafter, Ellis accepted a fellowship oppurtunity at Boston General. She relocated to Massachusetts with Meredith and Thatcher lost all contact with his daughter. She vaguely described her high school years by saying: "I wore a lot of black. Had the whole angry pink hair thing going on. Wouldn't have been caught dead at prom."

In 8th grade, she played Juliet in her class production of Romeo and Juliet but she thought Juliet was stupid.

She went to college at Dartmouth, and despite excessive drinking and partying, she graduated. Following her graduation, she had difficulty holding a job, due to her partying lifestyle. Ellis suggested Meredith find direction in her life by going to medical school even though she told her that she didn't have what it took to make it in the surgical world. Following an argument about Meredith's lack of ambition, Meredith spent two months traveling in Europe, only to return when her mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. Her mother's condition gave Meredith the incentive to go to medical school.

Personal life
Meredith considers her fellow interns and friends her family, in particular Cristina Yang, whom she considers her sister, person and best friend. She is very close with the other interns (although she did not want them too move in at first after posting up a notice) and currently lives with Alex Karev and Izzie Stevens, although, she used to live with George O'Malley. While he keeps his own dwelling, her boyfriend Derek Shepherd, frequently spends that night at her house.

Meredith's family life was significantly complicated upon the visit of her father's new family. She learned that he had re-married after her parents' divorce and has two more children. Thatcher's youngest child, Molly was admitted as one of Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd's patients and Meredith had the oppurtunity to speak with her, although Molly did not know Meredith's true identity. Molly told Meredith that their father was a devoted, loving father and he was incredibly proud of Molly and his other daughter, Lexie, a medical student at Harvard. Meredith also met her father's new wife, Susan from whom she learned that Thatcher did care about her and her sisters knew she existed. All the news of her family was overwhelming and she spent most of their visit avoiding her father.



Her mother had been moved to a nursing home in Seattle and Meredith took over 100% responsibility for Ellis.

After Meredith told her mother that Richard would no longer be visiting as he had returned to his wife, Ellis became agitated. Ellis became confused and began to relive the time when Richard initially broke up with her and blaming the fact that she had a daughter for the break up. Later, Ellis worried about having to raise Meredith all alone which lead Meredith to realize that her mother had done the best she could to raise her.

At the same time, Meredith's step-sister, Molly was readmitted to Seattle Grace for a c-section. Meredith decided to use this as an oppurtunity to face her father and find out similarities she had with the parent she'd never known. She asked Thatcher for his side of the story and discovered that he stayed away simply because Ellis told him to and had decided to start over with his new family. She discovered Thatcher had the same problem with snoring that she did and he suggested wax ear plugs.

Ellis became lucid although Meredith was warned that her lucidity would not last for very long. Instead of capitalizing on the oppurtunity to mend her relationship with her daughter, Ellis took this as a chance to tell Meredith how "ordinary" she thought she was and how dissapointed she was that Meredith was letting her career be sidetracked by Derek and that she hadn't chosen a specialty. While she was lucid, Ellis refused surgery to cure her arrhythmias although her wishes were conflicted with Meredith's power of attorney. Later, Meredith explained to Ellis that she wanted her to undergo the surgery because she hoped that sometime a cure for Alzheimer's would be found and they would get a second chance to know each other. By then, Ellis had lost her lucidity and was only able to recognize Meredith as someone who reminded her of her daughter.

Thatcher and Susan tried to reach out to Meredith after her mother's death and cremation. Susan suggested they even have dinner together which lead Meredith to host them at her house. At the beginning of the meal, the conversation was tense and awkward, but, by the end, Meredith and her father and made progress in healing their damaged relationship and Meredith became friendly with Susan. Susan even confessed that she felt guilty for not encourging Thatcher to maintaini a relationship with Meredith and Meredith began to warm up to the idea of having an "overprotective" mother as opposed to the "overbearing" one she had always known. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, Susan died as a result of a rare complication caused by a usually routine procedure. A distraught Thatcher slapped Meredith and forbade from coming to the funeral because he felt as though he had put his trust in Meredith and she had let him down.



After Burke left Cristina at the altar, Meredith left to go comfort her. After she and Cristina returned from Cristina's would-be honeymoon, Lexie reveals to Meredith in a rather untimely fashion that she is her half-sister and is a new intern at Seattle Grace. At first, Meredith disliked and avoided Lexie but in time grew to like her. The two stilll haven't really bonded yet.

In Season 5, an old friend, Sadie, shows up in Seattle and causes trouble with some of her relationships. Cristina disapproves of Meredith's relationship with Sadie, feeling threatened by the 'Di and Deth' experience Sadie keeps on bringing up. Cristina and Meredith ultimately get into a fight because Meredith, according to Cristina, did not stand up for her when the chief was berating her about knowing the underground learning club the interns started.

Meredith is also very compassionate and sometimes can't hepl doing the right thing, as seen when she showed pity for a death row prisoner and nearly helped him to suicide so he could give his organs to a young patient in Bailey's care. She attended his execution and burst into tears afterwards in Derek's arms who took her to Cristina so they could talk and work out their problems.

Romantic life


The night before her first day of work, she attended a mixer for the new interns, afterward, she went to the bar across the street from the hospital and met Derek Shepherd whom she believed would only be another man she had one of her infamous one night stands with, only to discover he was an attending neurosurgeon at Seattle Grace.

Meredith refused Derek's initial advances because she wanted to keep their relationship strictly professional but, eventually, she agreed to date him. Their relationship was immediately complicated when Meredith's supervising resident, Dr. Miranda Bailey, caught them half-naked in Derek's car. Furthermore, Derek's estranged wife, Dr. Addison Montgomery-Shepherd arrived later.

Despite the fact Meredith was angry with Derek for lying about his marriage, she decided she still wanted to be with him and begged him to choose her over his wife. Although he struggled considerably with the decision, ultimately, Derek decided that he had obligations towards his marriage and left Meredith to try to make his marriage work.

Derek's decision left Meredith devastated and led her to go back to her old lifestyle of tequila shots and one night stands. This also led her to search for her father, who still lived in Seattle but their reunion failed to give her any closure on her difficult childhood. After having a bad day and drinking a lot of alcohol, Meredith had a one night stand with George O'Malley only to cry in the middle which drove a wedge in their friendship.

In the meantime, Meredith had struck up a tentative friendship, going as far as Derek adopting Meredith's dog, Doc, when she was no longer able to keep him. What happened between Meredith and George upset Derek and he advised her to keep apologizing to George until he listened. Due in large part to the incident with George, Meredith declared her celibacy and took up knitting. However, she began dating when she met Doc's vet, Finn Dandridge. Derek became extremely jealous of Finn. His jealously took the form of anger and in a fight with Meredith he criticized her promiscuity and their friendship appeared to be over.

After the difficult decision to euthanize Doc, who had been suffering from bone cancer, Derek and Meredith attended a prom at the hospital for the Chief's dying niece, who did not get to attend her own prom, with Addison and Finn respectively. After an intense argument in an exam room, Meredith and Derek had sex, but before they could discuss their actions, Meredith was called away to Izzie whose fiance, Denny Duquette, had just died.

The next day, Addison found Meredith's panties, which had been left in Derek's tuxedo, and pinned them to bulletin board in the hospital as "Lost and Found". Meanwhile, Derek told Meredith he loved her for the first time and promised her that he'd wait while she chose between him and Finn.

Meredith decided to date both men before she decided because she had feelings for both of them. Meredith realized that dating two men isn't all fun and games and the stress of it soon began to wear her down. While she was dating, Meredith was admitted for an appendectomy. Finn's concern for her during her during her illness lead Derek to reconsider his pursuit of her. He finally decided that since he really loved her, he wanted her to be happy and Finn was a better man. However, Meredith decided that Derek was "the one" for her and broke up with Finn. She kept this information from Derek for another week but unfortunately revealed the break-up when Derek just found out that Addison had not had only a one night stand with his best friend, Mark but rather they had tried living together for two monthes after Derek left for Seattle.

After a visit from his sister, Nancy, Derek decided take some space from Meredith and other women for himself. He then went on a short camping trip which only anchored his love for Meredith. Upon his arrival, he found Meredith in Joe's Bar, the place where they had first met and they decided to start their relationship over from the beginning.

Later, while helping to treat people injured in a ferryboat accident, Meredith came across a young girl who had been seperated from her mother. The child refused to leave Meredith and Meredith kept her near her while she assisted patients. While treating a wounded man near the edge of the water, the man flung his arm in pain and accidently knocked her into the water. Meanwhile, Derek became worried when he couldn't find Meredith and he managed to find out from the young girl that Meredith had fallen in the water. Derek pulled Meredith out of the water and despite CPR, Meredith was still unresponsive when they arrived at the hospital. Her fellow doctors took on desperate measures to save her but she still remained hypothermic which no heart beat.



While she was unresponsive, her "ghost" was in a world in the middle of life and death. There she met several important patients and other characters who had died such as Denny, her mothers scrub nurse, a women who had died in a train accident, Dylan Young, a "bomb squad guy", and Doc, her dog. Towards the end of her stay in the after-life, she saw her mother, who provided closure to their complicated relationship by telling her that she "is anything but ordinary". This provided the incentive for her to go back to the real world. Although she was revived, the incident created stain on her relationship with Derek who said he wasn't sure if he could be in a relationship where had to constantly "breath for" Meredith.

Before Cristina's wedding, Derek confronted Meredith about her level of commitment in their relationship. He explained that she was the love of his life and he could never leave her but she "kept leaving him". They soon broke up and Derek got together with a nurse named Rose although in the season 4 finale he broke up with Rose and got back with Meredith.

Meredith asks Cristina if she really believed that Derek and her relationship is doomed and Cristina replies, "I'm your person, I'm on your side."

Meredith and Derek begin to talk about the possibility of moving in together. After Derek breaks up with Rose for Meredith, Rose gets angry because Derek told her all the time that he was over Meredith. She even goes so far as to jokingly tell him that she was pregnant with his child and she recently stabbed him with a scalpel in the OR. She realizes that because of Derek she is no longer the nurse that every doctor wants in their OR anymore and leaves for a new position, which leaves Meredith and Derek to go about their relationship. By the end of the episode, Derek moves in. He tried to make her roommate, Alex and Izzie moved but she finally stand up for them. When he found her mother's internship diary, she got upset at him but she agreed on letting him have her mother's desk.

She is actually thinking about having a baby. She got angry when she though Derek didn't want to have a baby with her, thinking he didn't want her "crapy genes" but he reassure her. She is finally told by Cristina that he was going to propose her, which explains his strange behaviour, but Cristina distracts her saying that it was from her mother's diaries.

While Derek is in a depression, the Chief reveals to Meredith that Derek was going to propose. When she finds him, Derek shouts at her, saying she cannot be fixed and she's far too broken, and ends up showing the ring to her, only for him to bat it away with a baseball bat.

Career


After graduating from medical school, Meredith secured a spot at Seattle Grace Hospital as a surgical intern and moved from Boston to the house in Seattle.

As a surgeon, Meredith shows great potential, although she does have her share of faults. At the beginning of her internship, Meredith made difficult diagnoses and assisted in several advanced procedures. She is smart and has shown signs that she will live up to her mother's legacy but struggles with accusations of favoritism due to her mothers history and her relationship with Derek.

Meredith proposes a clinical trial for inoperable brain tumors, and has Derek sign on as the leading surgeon, but she finds this difficult to handle as Derek is seeing Rose and she is still in love with him. The trial is a success, but Meredith becomes annoyed when Derek receives full credit for the "Shepherd Method".

When Derek moves in, he discovers all of Meredith's mom's old diaries which Meredith beings to read to get to know her better. She and Cristina bond over the medical nature of the diaries and learn a few tips from her mother's residency.