Twelve seasons full of countless deaths, tragedies, break-ups and make-ups, people left at the altar, children lost, children born and adopted, a plane crash, a homemade bomb, a shooter out for revenge, spouses and family members lost. This is what “Grey’s Anatomy” is made of: Love, loss and everything in between. With season 13 starting tonight, let’s take a look back at where we left off.

Viewers were left with April and Jackson welcoming their new baby girl into the world. As most things go in “Grey’s Anatomy,” the birth did not happen as planned. April was at Meredith’s house with Ben during a storm when she went into labor with a breech baby. Ben, who was still suspended from the surgical residency for a C-section gone terribly wrong, performed the operation with household supplies and no medication. The ambulance made it in time to take both mother and baby to the hospital, where it was revealed that Ben had saved them both.

Meredith was the maid of honor in Amelia and Owen’s wedding. After months of arguing, Meredith and Amelia reconciled when Meredith supported Amelia’s decision to run away from the wedding. The bride worked through her moment of panic and ended up back at the church just in time for the ceremony. In the middle of the service, Maggie revealed to Meredith that she is interested in Dr. Riggs, a newer member of the hospital staff and the man that Meredith is sleeping with.

While the finale was filled with stress and conflict, season 12 ended on a sweet note. Despite a long and messy custody battle, the episode comes to a close with Arizona setting aside her hard feelings and trying to work out an arrangement with Callie for co-parenting. She sent Callie and Sophia to visit Penny with a promise to work out a shared custody plan.

I have been watching “Grey’s Anatomy” since the day it premiered in 2005, but at the end of season 11, when Shonda Rhimes, the producer of “Grey’s Anatomy,” killed off my favorite character, Meredith’s husband Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd, I stopped watching. It was not until this summer that I decided to catch up and am glad that I did.

After the third or fourth season it seemed that the plot lines either got absolutely ridiculous or absolutely predictable. However, when I picked back up with season 12, I was happy to see that instead of throwing one major tragedy after another at Meredith, the show was shifting focus to the rest of the cast and addressing real-life, hard-hitting issues like divorce, domestic abuse and custody battles. While the show still has a flair for the dramatics, it focuses on relatable difficulties that the audience may actually face in their day-to-day life.

The characters have matured a lot as well. We saw Jo and Alex go from angry, closed-off individuals to a couple that loves and supports one another. April and Jackson learned to communicate through the tragedies they faced together. Meredith is opening herself up to new relationships and Amelia made a lifetime commitment to Owen instead of running away and playing the victim in a heartbreak.

I am really excited to see how the characters continue to develop in season 13. But I am most excited to see April and Jackson find their way back to each other because, let’s be honest, those two are clearly meant to be together.