I’m a big fan of the medical drama, Grey’s Anatomy which airs Thursday nights on ABC.

I didn’t see tonight’s story line coming. The show is mainly about a group of residents who work together at a hospital in Seattle. One of the residents is a young woman named Isobel, commonly referred to as Izzy (played by Katherine Heigl). In tonight’s episode, a couple comes up to Izzy at the desk and starts saying something abut their daughter who has cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant. Izzy starts giving them directions to Pediatrics when they tell her that their daughter looks just like her. She looks confused for a moment and they say, “You are our daughter’s birthmother.”

I wasn’t paying too much attention until that moment and then I was glued to the screen to see how this would play out. Apparently, the daughter, Hannah, is eleven years old and has cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant. Hannah’s adoptive parents had sought out Izzy thinking that she might be a match since she is her biological mother.

So here is this birthmother standing in the hospital where she is a doctor, obviously very few of the other doctors know she is a birthmother and her daughter, whom she has dreamed about meeting is sick a few floors above her. She asks if she can meet her and the adoptive parents say they will have to ask Hannah first.

Later on, we hear Izzy explaining to George (another character) that she got pregnant at sixteen and that her mother wanted her to keep the baby but Izzy wanted her daughter to have more than the trailer park she grew up in. Izzy mentioned dreaming of the moment she would reunite with her daughter, but in her dreams she was always more mature, more prepared than she felt at that moment.

I know this is just television, but this story line had my heart going. My heart was aching for Izzy to be able to see her daughter. The adoptive parents asked Hannah and then came out of the room and told Izzy that she was just too tired to meet her at that moment. My heart was breaking for her.

Izzy ends up being a match and going through the painful bone marrow procedure as any mother would to try and save the life of her child. After the procedure, Izzy is able to peak through a window and see her daughter. She smiles and comments on how beautiful her daughter is.

And for the most part, I think I am pleased as to how the story writers and producers portrayed this storyline and characters. I’m sure as I reflect more (since I literally typed this while watching – I was excited!) that I may find a few things they could have done differently. It will be interesting to see if this storyline continues or if it was just a one episode occurrence. In real life, adoption isn’t a one time occurrence, it follows you, it would be nice for them to portray that, but I am not sure if they will.