Adoptive mother reunites long-lost sisters after discovering girl who looked like her daughter in orphanage
Nothing can come between a sister's love, not even one sister's overseas adoption.
Aubrey and Avery Lumpkins, both 13, are picking up right where they left off, even though the Kentucky family that adopted Aubrey when she was 9 had no idea she had a sister just one year ago.
"They remembered being [at the orphanage in China] together, but they had no clue they were sisters," their adoptive mother, Lisa Lumpkins told InsideEdition.com.
But, despite a little time apart, Georgetown-native Lumpkins said, "they're loving being together."
She said that while Avery has been bonding with everyone else in the family, including four other adopted children and two biological children, it's obvious she and biological sister Aubrey have a special relationship.
"She's so protective," Lumpkins said about Avery, whom she suspects is Aubrey's twin.
See images of the happy reunion:
Both girls have cerebral palsy, but Lumpkins said Aubrey has more trouble walking.
"Aubrey likes being really independent," she said. But when Aubrey approached a set of steps, Lumpkins said she watched Avery instinctively stick her arm out, and offer her support. "She knows Aubrey won't ask for help, but she was afraid Aubrey was going to fall."
Likewise, Aubrey has become extremely attached to her sister, even though Aubrey doesn't speak Chinese, and Avery has not yet learned English.
Lumpkins said when her other daughter mistakenly announced that Avery was missing earlier this week, "Aubrey threw her books down and took off running [although] she can barely walk now. She said, 'It scared me to death, mom.'"
The long-lost sisters were only able to be reunited last year, when Lumpkins saw a picture of a girl on Facebook that looked nearly identical to Aubrey, whom she adopted in 2013.
"I was speechless. I was like, 'Wow! She looks just like my daughter,'" Lumpkins told InsideEdition.com in a previous interview.
At the time, Lumpkins, 44, was a mother of six — two biological children and four children adopted from China.
She eventually asked the adoption agency to run a DNA test, that confirmed the two girls are related. Lumpkins decided she would have to bring the sister home.
After a battle against time (a Chinese adoption law required children to be adopted before age 14 or face eviction from the orphanage) and a scramble to raise enough money through their GoFundMe, Aubrey's biological sister, Avery, became the latest addition to the Lumpkins clan.
Read: Mom Who Wrote a Letter to Adopted Daughter 20 Year Ago Gives it to Her on Her Wedding Day
As Avery met her new family at the airport last week, Lumpkins said "Avery's hollering Aubrey's Chinese name, 'Ha Mei.' All the way down the escalator, she was crouching down, yelling her name."
Leading the way was another girl they decided to adopt at the last minute, Molly: "Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. She was like 'Mom, mom!' She hollered as loud as she could.
"I think that made everybody cry," Lumpkins said.
Watch: Couple Drives 32 Hours to Adopt Blind Dog as 'Brother' to Blind Dog They Already Own
