Unrealistic Expectations

I'm going to ramble a bit here, so forgive me--

A very dear friend just brought home her first baby a little over a week ago, & her struggles to adjust to mommy life took me back about 10 months to when i was a brand new mom, having freak outs of my own. (we've all been there, right?) Two more good friends have also just started TTC for the first time, & called me this week with all kinds of "is being a mom really that hard?" questions, each totally convinced that while life will change a bit, they'll still be working 80 hours a week (lawyers) & hitting the gym, & that they won't really fight with their husbands over who left the wipes open so they all dried up (or who changed the last poopy diaper, or who forgot to pack the diaper bag, & so on.) & while i chose not to bust their bubbles, i have to admit N & i had a good laugh when i got off the phone.
I feel like even those of us more familiar with the new mom situation (from watching family & friends, TTC for years, etc) put unrealistic expectations on ourselves. i got a bit of a break when we first got home, bc i had a c-section (so laundry was out for a while, etc), but once N went back to work, i think both he & i expected that i would be back on top of things relatively quickly. i'd be getting the laundry done & put away, have some sort of dinner ready, & still have fed & cared for the boys. HA. we very quickly found out we were insane to think life would find "normal" that quickly, & i started taking any & all help i could get.
i do think we adjusted our expectations a bit quicker than other families i've seen, but only bc we were forced to-- with twins your resources are already stretched to the limit, so you hit the wall a bit sooner. (yes, we dealt with NICU for the boys & health issues for mom, but i'm going to by-pass all that today in favor of the "normal" new mom experience. )
in all honesty, i think the boys were 6 mos before we had a working rhythym to our lives again. (no the laundry didn't sit for 6 mos, i just mean that it was that long before we really found our new normal & felt in charge or our lives again.)
so why is it that we put such high expectations on ourselves? i personally hate seeing the photos of celebrity moms 2 weeks after birth, out sans baby, hitting the gym & looking better than most of us pre-baby. i think it gives men in particular, a very unrealistic expectation of post-partum life. also, too often i think we disregard the physical part of recovery-- even if you have a "easy" normal delivery, your hormones are still going to be bananas for a couple months. you will be a crying mess, & the sleep deprivation doesn't help. a new mom with her first kid can't be expected to have a full bag of tricks to soothe a fussy baby, & you haven't yet negotiated all the changes in your relationship with your significant other. (no matter how much you may have discussed roles, etc in the months leading up to baby, the real thing always brings changes & stress & arguments you never thought you'd have.)
i think i finally started feeling better when i took my mom's advice to heart-- no one ever died of crying (important to remember when you can't figure out what's wrong with your precious bundle of joy) & when all else fails, let everything fall by the wayside & just love your babies. it was those quiet moments with my new sons, when i first said "screw the laundry!", that really made me feel like a mom & shifted my perspective-- laundry will wait, dinner can be ordered, dust can build up, & life will go on, but it will never be the same.