In November, 1991, Dr. Ricardo Asch, then head of UCI's fertility clinic, placed five tiny embryos into Debbie Challender's fallopian tubes.

"You will be pregnant," she remembers Asch saying.

She'd heard it before: A decade of fertility treatments had left Debbie and her husband, John, with nothing but bad memories.

But Asch was right. This time was different. Her son, J.D., was born August 24, 1992.

"He is a miracle," says Debbie, 36. "He's a gift from God."

But the blessing has been mixed: Two weeks ago, the Challenders were given photocopies of records showing Asch took 10 of 46 eggs he harvested from Debbie and gave them to another woman. The Challenders say they did not consent. The woman also received embryos from another, unidentified source, and records show she gave birth to a boy and a girl.

Asch denies doing anything against his patients' wishes.

The Challenders are not the only patients of the world-renowned clinic who say their eggs were taken without consent, but Wednesday they decided to become the first to step forward and talk publicly about their ordeal. Fifteen days after first fingering the grainy numbers on charts that tracked the eggs, John and Debbie are haunted by a simple question about the twins: Are they ours?

John doesn't want to know. Debbie does.

And they've retained Newport Beach lawyer Theodore S. Wentworth to represent them and help them through the media circus that will surely follow their going on the record.

"The embryos they took were our children," said John, 46. "The embryos they stole, those were my children."

John said thinking about the missing children - for that is how he sees them, not as embryos, but children - keeps him awake nights. The last few days, he's been getting just three hours sleep - not enough to sustain him on his 12-hour shifts as a truck dispatcher.

He dwells on them during the daytime too: Now he does a double take any time he sees a child that looks like J.D., wondering if that might be his son, his daughter. Meeting them is his biggest fear.

And he cries daily. At first he resisted sudden sobbing fits, then, gave over to them - welcoming the tears that help him spill out the anger, the sadness, the grief, the fear.

"It helps," he said, considering the rocky hills rising over his Corona back yard. "It helps me deal with the frustration."

J.D. pedals by in a bright yellow and red plastic car, sending up a happy smile. That helps, too.

Time the couple used to spend relaxing with J.D. and his older brother J.R. - adopted as an infant eight years ago - they now spend trying to figure out how to tell their story without having the media attention destroy their lives. The London Sunday Times along with ABC-TV's "20/20" and "Nightline," Newsweek and NBC-TV's "Today" show have all been seeking them out for interviews.

Wentworth convinced them that they need to be prepared for the questions and schooled in the ways of the media. Wednesday afternoon they met with a Los Angeles media coach to learn how they look on camera and how best to phrase their thoughts for TV, magazine and newspaper reporters.

J.R. knows life may get strange, but he's still not sure why. "My dad told me about it, but I don't get it," he said.

Debbie, a stoic, private person less ready than John to share her feelings, shudders to think of the coming days.

"I'm scared," Debbie said. "For my whole life to be out in the public, I feel very nervous about it. But if it's an important enough issue, I'm willing to give it up."

The couple are going public because they want the world to know about their experience. Then doctors "are going to realize the average guy who drives a truck is going to know about it" and can't be so easily abused, John said.

The couple said they believe Asch knowingly took the eggs without their consent, and that the university knew he was doing it and tried to keep it quiet. A color photocopy of a consent form signed by the Challenders in black ink shows an "X" in a box next to the donation option - in blue ink. Both vouched for their signatures, but denied checking the box approving donation.

"They're motivated toward profit, success and fame," John said. "They're success-driven. The university has decided to turn their heads."

University officials acknowledge they should have had more oversight of the UCI Center for Reproductive Health, but said they investigated charges of egg mishandling as soon as they were brought to their attention and acted as quickly as possible.

"We never turned our heads on the allegations," said UCI spokeswoman Fran Tardiff. "We felt it would be irresponsible to contact patients about these allegations until we had some reasonable proof."

The university contacted the couple in May to discuss their case.

The clinic closed June 2 and is the subject of seven national and state investigations.

The couple said they are not going to the types of news shows and magazines that pay for stories, but to mainstream media that will get the word out to as many patients as possible.

Friends and family tell the couple they can profit from their troubles by suing; the Challenders say the money motive is the last thing on their minds.

"Money is not going to make us feel better about them," said Debbie.

"There is no compensation that will make up for it." John agreed. "This will scar me for life."

Though J.D. is her mirror image, Debbie said she is getting his DNA tested - just to be sure.

And she wants the Orange County twins tested, too. She hopes to find out they are not genetically hers.

And if they are?

"I want to see them," Debbie said. "I have this need to see them. To hold them. To know that they're OK."

John doesn't want to know.

"If the DNA testing proved they were ours and I saw them, I don't know how I would deal. I may find it more comforting not knowing. Knowing and walking away to me would be dreadful. If we go down and see these children, how can I turn my back and say I'm never going to see them anymore?"

Both say they would never take the children from a happy home. The security of the children is the most important thing, they said.

"If they're in a good home, the bottom line is that's where they should stay," John said.

The irony is that all this has happened just as their lives were becoming peaceful for the first time in years, Debbie said.

They had survived John's heart attack and loss of his trucking company in 1987, and losing a home to bankruptcy in 1994. Things had only now started to smooth out.

"I just wish it never would have happened," Debbie said. "We're happy now with our lives, the way it is. It felt like, it was all supposed to be better now."

Devout Christians, the two are daily becoming more familiar with the biblical story of Job, who endured much suffering but did not lose faith in God.

"My pastor even drew that analogy," said John, who believes it's true God is testing him "to make me stronger, to make my family stronger."

Their tiny church, family and a tight band of friends will get them over this hurdle as they have others, the couple say.

Passing each test, they all become stronger, John said, and this one will be no different.

"This is a life lesson," he said, an opportunity to teach Christian values, to put principles into practice.

"It's a life lesson for us and for the children.

"Let's hope there aren't many more."