Biography for
Dr. Meredith Grey (Character)
from "Grey's Anatomy" (2005)

Meredith Grey is the only child born to Ellis and Thatcher Grey. She spent the early part of her childhood in Seattle, Washington, where her mother was completing her surgical residency at Seattle Grace Hospital. Her parents marriage was troubled, and her mother was involved in a years-long affair with her colleague, Dr. Richard Webber. Eventually, their marital troubles proved too great and Thatcher left when Meredith was five years old. Soon after, Ellis accepted a fellowship opportunity at Boston General, and relocated to Massachusetts with Meredith. Thatcher lost all contact with his daughter.Her college years were spent at Dartmouth, where she graduated in spite of excessive partying and drinking. Following her graduation, she had difficulty holding a job due to her partying. Ellis encouraged Meredith to find direction in her life, suggesting medical school even though she had told Meredith that she didn't have what it took to be a good surgeon. After an argument over Meredith's lack of ambition, Meredith spent two months traveling in Europe, returning home when Ellis was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. The diagnosis provided the impetus behind Meredith's decision to go to medical school. After completing medical school, Meredith secured a position in the surgical residency program at Seattle Grace and relocated from Boston to live in the Queen Anne Hill home (located at 613 Harper Lane) that had belonged to her mother and grandmother. Ellis had been moved into a nursing home, and Meredith was soon to become completely responsible for all of Ellis's affairs. The night before her internship started, she attended a mixer for the new interns, and then went to the bar across the street for a drink. There, she met Derek Shepherd, a man whom she believed would be nothing more than the latest addition to her string of her infamous one-night stands, only to discover the next day that he was an attending neurosurgeon at Seattle Grace. Meredith initially refused Dereks advances and wanted to keep their relationship professional. Eventually, she gave in and agreed to date him. Their relationship was complicated from the beginning when Merediths supervising resident, Miranda Bailey, caught Derek and Meredith half-naked in his car. The ultimate blow, however, came with the arrival of Dereks estranged wife, Addison Montgomery-Shepherd. Meredith was angry that Derek had lied about being married, but she eventually decided that she still wanted to be with him and confessed her love for him and begged him to choose her. While Derek struggled over his choice, ultimately his sense of obligation to his marriage vows won, and he left Meredith to return to his wife.

Meredith was left devastated and reverted to her old behavior of tequila shots and drunken one-night stands, even as she and Derek continued to experience strong feelings for one another. This period of abandonment led Meredith to search out her father, who still lived in Seattle; their reunion failed to give Meredith any closure regarding her childhood, and in an alcohol-influenced decision, she had sex with George OMalley, only to cry in the middle of the encounter and drive a wedge in their friendship.Meanwhile, Meredith and Derek began a platonic friendship. Meredith began a relationship with her dog's veterinarian, Finn Dandridge. Derek's jealousy manifested as anger, and after a fight in which Derek criticized Merediths promiscuity, their friendship appeared to be over.

Meredith learns of her father's life when her half-sister Molly was admitted to the hospital. Thatcher Grey remarried after his divorce to Ellis and had two more daughters. Unaware of Merediths true identity, Meredith learned that their father had been a devoted and loving father, and was incredibly proud of Molly and her sister Lexie, a med student at Harvard.After a heated argument in an exam room, Derek and Meredith had sex, but before they could discuss the implications of their actions, Meredith was called away to deal with Izzie, whose fiance Denny had just died. The next day, Addison found Merediths panties in Dereks tuxedo pocket. Derek professed his love to her for the first time and promised to wait while Meredith made her choice between him and Finn. Between the two men, Meredith chose Derek. She kept the break-up from Derek for another week, and made the unfortunate timing mistake of telling him just after Addison had confessed that she and Mark had not just been a one-night stand, as she had led Derek to believe, but had actually lived together for two months after Derek left for Seattle.

Following his sister Nancys advice, Derek asked Meredith for time to take some space for himself, and then embarked on a very brief camping trip, which only cemented his desire for Meredith. He found her in the very place they had first met-Joes barand they agreed to start their relationship over from the very beginning. With Derek back in her life, Meredith had a stable foundation to deal with the family drama that would soon arise.Ellis Grey became very agitated when Meredith was forced to break the news that Richard Webber would no longer be visiting her, having chosen to go back to his wife. Ellis was confused and relived their initial breakup, blaming the fact that shed had a daughter as the reason Richard wouldnt be with her. Later, Ellis showed concern over the prospect of raising her daughter alone, leading Meredith to realize that although their relationship had been troubled, Ellis had done the best she could in raising her.At the same time, Merediths sister Molly was readmitted to the hospital for a c-section. With Thatcher at the hospital, Meredith was forced to face her father and her similarities to a parent shed never known. She opened up and asked Thatcher for his side of the story, only to learn that hed stayed away simply because Ellis told him to and started over with his new family. While tension remained between the two, Thatcher did provide a solution to Meredith's snoring, which had become a point of contention with Derek, by suggesting wax ear plugs.

Following a disastrous accident involving a ferryboat, Meredith was one of the doctors sent to the scene to assist with triage. Meredith quickly came across a young girl who had been separated from her mother, and kept the child with her as she assisted a wounded patient near the edge of the dock. In his pain, the man lashed out and accidentally knocked Meredith into the water. The young girl led Derek to the site of Meredith's fall and communicated what had happened. Derek jumped in after her and pulled her out, but despite continuous CPR, she was still unresponsive upon arriving at the hospital. Her colleagues began desperate measures to save her, but she remained hypothermic and asystolic for several hours until she was revived following a near-death experience in which she encountered former patients, Doc, and her mother, who died while doctors were working on Meredith. The near-death experience provided closure to Meredith's complicated relationship with her mother and refueled Meredith's will to live.

Ellis Grey experienced a completely lucid day, giving mother and daughter an opportunity to mend their troubled relationship. Rather than embrace the opportunity, Ellis expressed great disappointment at how "ordinary" Meredith turned out to be, criticizing Meredith for allowing her relationship with Derek to sidetrack her from her career and failing to have chosen a specialty. During her period of lucidity, Ellis declined to undergo heart surgery to correct her arrhythmias, but her wishes were in conflict with Meredith's power of attorney. Later, Meredith returned to explain that she wanted Ellis to undergo the surgery in the hope that a cure for Alzheimer's would be found in the near future, giving them a second chance to know each other. Unfortunately, Ellis's lucidity had faded and she was only able to recognize Meredith as someone who reminded her of her daughter. Thatcher and Susan reached out to Meredith after Ellis's death and cremation; Susan suggested they have dinner together, and Meredith hosted her father and stepmother at her home. The conversation was awkward and tense at first, but by the end of the evening, progress had been made to heal their damaged relationship. Susan continued to reach out to Meredith, eventually confessing that she felt guilty for not encouraging Thatcher to maintain his relationship with Meredith during her childhood, and Meredith began to open up to the idea of an overprotective mother figure, as opposed to the overbearing mothering she had always known.

However, shortly after the death of Ellis, Meredith lost her stepmother as well when Susan died following a rare complication of a usually routine procedure. In his grief, Thatcher slapped Meredith and forbade her to attend the funeral, blaming Susan's death on her trust in Meredith. Meredith also made strides professionally, performing a complicated harvest procedure on her own after returning to work, taking comfort in the fact that it would have made her mother proud of her.

In the wake of Susan's death and the confrontations with her father, Meredith froze during a critical exam that would determine her future in the internship program. The other interns pleaded her case to Chief Webber, who arranged for Meredith to make up the test privately.The events of her intern year came to a head as Meredith helped Cristina prepare for her wedding. Derek confronted her over her level of commitment to their relationship, telling her that she was the love of his life, but that she needed to end their relationship if she was not in it for the long haul. Meredith did not address his concerns, and after Burke and Cristina's wedding fell apart, Meredith left to help a distraught Cristina, leaving her relationship and future with Derek uncertain. After accompanying Cristina on her would-be honeymoon, Meredith returned to Seattle Grace and learned that her half-sister, Lexie, had begun work as a new intern. She and Derek briefly discussed their relationship, and she confirmed that they had broken up.

He begins dating a nurse, and Meredith goes to a psychiatrist in order to sort through her mutliple problems. When she and Derek begin working on a clinical trial together in order to shrink deadly tumors, old feelings start resurfacing. Meredith initially wants to be a martyrlike figure, surrendering their love 'for the greater good', but her therapist points out the scruples in that self-sacrificing plan. After their first trial success, she sets up hundreds, perhaps thousands, of candles outlining a house on Derek's property and the two decide to make another go at it. They are still in a relationship, and Meredith has to work hard to stop herself from sabotaging their relationship while Derek's ego tends to get in the way of their happiness.