Saving Emerson: A Family's Struggle with Health Care

Emerson White is a girl's girl. She chooses her own dresses, gets her hair done, her nails painted.

And she does it from a hospital bed where she's spent the better part of her two years.

"Eme," as her family calls her, is unaware of the struggle her family has gone through to get insurance coverage for one multiple-organ transplant and a possible second to come.

"She's very happy," mom Erika White told ABCNews.com. "She's the happiest baby."

Emerson was diagnosed at six months with intestinal pseudo-obstruction exacerbated by an undescribed metabolic disease. She received a liver, pancreas and small bowel transplant in June, but most of her donor small bowel turned necrotic and had to be removed in emergency surgery Dec. 31.

Doctors say she may need another transplant, but either way her medical bills continue to mount, totaling about $2.5 million so far, according to White.