Now the Krupas, along with two other women, are suing the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance, claiming the mandate discriminates against their sexual orientation — essentially forcing infertile homosexual women to pay for costly procedures to try to become pregnant. 
 
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 “These women are already going through what can be a difficult experience, and they have the added stress of affording it financially and the added insult of being treated like a second-class citizen,” said Grace Cretcher, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. 
 
 The state mandate requires most major insurance companies to cover medically necessary treatments for infertile clients. It defines infertility as the inability to impregnate another person, the inability to carry a pregnancy to live birth or the inability to conceive after one or two years of unprotected sex, depending on the woman’s age. 
 
 That language, Ms. Cretcher said, violates the constitutional rights of nonheterosexual women. 
 
 In a complaint filed last week, the plaintiffs, all lesbians trying to conceive, also sought damages for the cost of their treatments, including artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization. 
 
 Ms. Cretcher’s firm, Beranbaum Menken, is bringing the suit against Richard J. Badolato, commissioner of the Department of Banking and Insurance, who oversees the administration of all insurance-related state statutes. The agency declined to comment on the litigation. 
 
 Fifteen states, including New Jersey, require insurance companies to cover fertility treatment. California and Maryland have updated the language in their mandates to require fertility coverage regardless of sexual orientation. 
 
 “The specific wording of the New Jersey mandate is particularly egregious and one of the most specific and exclusionary,” Ms. Cretcher said. 
 
 The New Jersey Legislature has two bills that propose changing the definition of infertility to include a “determination of infertility by a physician.” Neither bill has emerged from committee. 
 
 Dr. William Ziegler, the medical director of the Reproductive Science Center of New Jersey, said the issue of insurance coverage had long weighed on the field of fertility treatment. 
 
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 “I’m not sure if there was a lot of thought given to the implications of what this would cause and how many New Jerseyans it would exclude,” Dr. Ziegler said of the mandate. “It’s a double standard. It discriminates against same-sex couples because they don’t have the biological equipment to have a baby the way a heterosexual couple does.” 
 
 He said insurance played a big role in the type of treatment his patients were able to undergo. 
 
 “Even though I may recommend a specific treatment, if they just can’t afford it they have to do something suboptimal, which may not get them to what they want: a healthy pregnancy,” he said. 
 
 Another plaintiff in the case, Sarah Mills, said she was worried about raising a child with debt from unsuccessful fertility treatments. 
 
 “It’s really affected me emotionally,” said Ms. Mills, 32, an elementary school teacher from Union City, N.J. “I know it puts a strain on our relationship,” she said, referring to her partner, Gloria Torres. “I am so intense about this. I just worry every day that I can’t get pregnant and about going into debt.” 
 
 Ms. Mills’s insurance company, also Horizon, denied her coverage. She used credit cards to pay for her failed cycles of artificial insemination and anticipates taking out a loan. “I don’t know if we are going to have to stop eventually because we are paying out of pocket,” she said. 
 
 Horizon said in a statement that it covered “infertility services equally, regardless of sexual orientation,” and that it interpreted the law “in a gender- and orientation-neutral manner and our coverage standard complies with federal nondiscrimination requirements.” 
 
 After Erin Krupa was denied coverage by Horizon, she appealed the claim and began paying out of pocket for artificial insemination — $6,000 for three cycles. Each was unsuccessful. Her appeal was then denied. 
 
 “There is a part of me that has always followed the rules and says this is the world we live in,” Ms. Krupa, now 36, said. “I didn’t question it at the time. I just wanted to have a family.” 
 
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 The couple decided to try in vitro fertilization, which is more invasive and expensive — about $11,000 before the cost of sperm and medicine — but has a higher rate of success. 
 
 On Christmas Eve, Ms. Krupa learned she was pregnant, and the couple drove to North Carolina to celebrate the holiday and the good news with family. But the pregnancy was ectopic, a condition in which a fertilized egg implants itself outside the uterus, and had to be terminated with two doses of chemotherapy. Ms. Krupa ended up in the hospital after a complication. 
 
 After those painful events, her doctor “had a lot of ammunition,” she said, and wrote a letter to the insurance company. Horizon decided to provide coverage. 
 
 The Krupas were allowed four cycles of in vitro fertilization. After the first three were unsuccessful, they changed their strategy: They would use Erin’s embryos, but try to have Marianne carry them and have her go through the fourth cycle of in vitro fertilization. 
 
 Marianne Krupa, 34, was able to use the last of the insurance money allotted to her wife. But she miscarried twice. 
 
 “This has been emotionally and physically taxing,” Erin Krupa said, her voice wavering. “I’m also stubborn and really want this to work.” 
 
 The Krupas worry they are running out of time to conceive. Both women are now undergoing in vitro fertilization, even though the procedures are no longer covered. They have paid about $50,000 out of pocket for treatments since they first tried to start a family. 
 
 Erin Krupa hopes that the lawsuit means other women will not need to endure the financial burden they have. 
 
 “If this is what good can come out of it,” she said, “I guess I would do it all again to improve treatment for other women.” ||||| A Montclair couple claims NJ law discriminates against their efforts to have a child. EWN at 6. pic.twitter.com/2dtOo9JTNa — Joe Torres (@joetorresABC7) August 8, 2016 
 
 Marianne and Erin Krupa of Montclair just want to have a baby. After $50,000 in fertility treatments, a half dozen miscarriages, four for Erin and two for Marianne, their five-year quest for motherhood now involves a new course of action...legal action.Last week they filed a suit against the State of New Jersey. Why? They say state law allows insurance coverage for fertility treatments for heterosexual couples, but not for lesbian couples."Right away, we were told that without having sexual intercourse, we would not be covered," Marianne said."We have a medical diagnosis of infertility, and we were denied the medical treatments any heterosexual couple would have if they walked into a fertility clinic," added Erin.Reproductive Endocrinologist Dr. Jane Miller says the Krupa's case is not unique. She agrees with them, and says the law has to change."It's completely discriminatory. It gets us furious every time, because good people come in, and they say we just wanted to have a family and get on with our lives, and do what we have to do," Dr. Miller says.The Krupa's lawsuit targets the head of the state's Department of Banking and Insurance. Eyewitness News contacted the Commissioner on Monday for his side of the story. In response, they said, "the department does not comment on pending litigation." ||||| New numbers actually show a decline over the past 30 years. 
 
 America's infertility rate is not rising, according to new government data. (Photo: Getty Images/Comstock Images) Story Highlights Data fly in the face of popular wisdom about infertility 
 
 More talk about infertility may make it seem like it's on the rise, researcher says 
 
 Women over age 35 may not wait a year to seek medical treatment 
 
 Are fertility problems the inevitable fallout of the USA's older marriage ages? No, suggest new federal data released Wednesday that show infertility has actually declined. 
 
 "When you look at this downward trend, it goes against the popular wisdom of people we all know," says the report's lead author, Anjani Chandra, a health scientist at the National Center for Health Statistics. 
 
 Data show the percentage of married women ages 15-44 who were infertile fell from 8.5% in 1982 to 6% from 2006 to 2010. The actual numbers represent a drop from 2.4 million women to 1.5 million. For unmarried women living with a male partner, the new data show 4.9% as infertile. 
 
 Today's median age at first marriage is the highest ever: 26.6 for women and 28.6 for men, according to 2012 data from the U.S. Census. 
 
 Infertility, according to the agency's definition, is "lack of pregnancy in the 12 months prior to the survey, despite having had unprotected sexual intercourse in each of those months with the same husband or partner." 
 
 "People seem to think it's going up, when the fact is that it's remarkably stable, despite the preponderance of medical services," Chandra says. "The level of infertility is being counteracted by their pursuit of medical help to have a child. Both together are bringing down the percentage we see as infertile when we do our survey." 
 
 The report is based on 22,682 face-to-face interviews, including 12,279 women and 10,403 men. 
 
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 Another measure called "impaired fecundity" is "physical difficulty in either getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to live birth." For married women of those ages, impaired fecundity was 12% in the latest data. 
 
 Physician Richard Reindollar, president-elect of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, says his organization finds the new data encouraging. 
 
 "Even though the ages at which women in the United States have their children have been increasing since 1995, the percentage of the population suffering from infertility or impaired fecundity has not increased," says Reindollar, of Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. 
 
 Rafat Abbasi, a reproductive endocrinology physician in Bethesda, Md., says the time period in which the survey was conducted may well play a role in the data's recent stability. 
 
 "People were getting older — beyond the scope of fertility treatments," she says. "And the second thing is the economic recession, when a lot of people couldn't afford to do these treatments. I don't think it was due to more fertile people being around. It's more a factor of these coexisting conditions." 
 
 Both Abbasi and Chandra say the definition of infertility may affect the data. Chandra speculates that some — such as a woman over 35 — may not wait 12 months for medical intervention, which means she wouldn't meet the report's definition for being infertile. 
 
 However, Barbara Collura, executive director of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, a non-profit based in McLean, Va., says she doesn't think people are seeking help sooner. "I'm very frustrated that people wait too long to see a specialist. I hear it anecdotally over and over." 
 
 Chandra says the single most important factor associated with fertility problems is the age at which a woman tries to have her first child. The drop from 44% to 27% for infertility from 1982 to 2006-10 for women ages 35-44 is due to both the likelihood of medical treatment as well as the smaller pool of people trying to become pregnant at those ages, she says. 
 
 Collura says it's unclear what to make of the new federal data. 
 
 "We have more people seeking our services and being part of our community than ever before," she says. "Does that mean there are more people with infertility? Not necessarily." 
 
 A barrier to treatment is cost, she says, citing an online survey her organization conducted last month of 1,694 individuals. The not-yet-released data show that 60% of respondents have little to no insurance coverage for infertility treatment. 
 
 In addition to testing, which can cost up to $1,500, infertility treatments can cost $13,000 to $15,000 per treatment, Abbasi says. 
 
 Despite a boom in the use of pregnancy-aiding medical techniques, a new government study suggests the percentage of married couples having trouble conceiving has actually dropped slightly in recent years. (Photo: LM Otero, AP) 
 
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– When Erin and Marianne Krupa decided they wanted to start a family five years ago, they moved from North Carolina to New Jersey in search of a less conservative environment. Little did they know they were about to hit upon a state insurance mandate from 2001 that they say specifically discriminates against same-sex couples trying to conceive: In New Jersey, most women under 35 must prove infertility by having had "two years of unprotected sexual intercourse" before their insurance providers are required to cover fertility treatments, reports the New York Times. Soon after they visited fertility doctors, Erin learned in 2013 that she is infertile due to endometriosis and benign cysts on her uterus. But their insurance provider has denied coverage of most treatments the couple has gone through, which means they've spent nearly $50,000 so far in their quest to have a child. Now they're suing the state. "It's completely discriminatory," reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Jane Miller tells WABC-TV. And while only two other women are joining the Krupas in the lawsuit, Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights tells the New Jersey Law Journal that "these denials are extremely common" and "we expect to see many more [legal challenges]." One of the plaintiffs' attorneys says that the law in New Jersey is especially discriminatory in its language about exposure to sperm through intercourse. New York and Connecticut, for instance, require exposure but don't specify how, while legislation in California and Maryland requires infertility treatment be covered regardless of sexual orientation. As for the Krupas, Marianne has since gone through her own fertility treatments, but has miscarried twice. Both women are still trying. (These two common surgeries may make women more fertile.)