The cone of silence around birth "is one of the most damaging taboos".

My mother gave birth to five children but it wasn’t until I fell pregnant that she started sharing her birth secrets with me.

“Mum, is the pain of labour like getting slamming your finger in a car door?” I asked.

“More like closing the boot on your arm,” my mother said.

My young mum said it would be like a marathon.  I’d have to “go with it” and not fight the contractions.

My mother flew to London a few days before I gave birth. Image supplied.

She was the perfect doula through a 27-hour labour, but she gave me no warning of what was at the end of the marathon.

My mum belly laughed when I told her I'd packed G-strings and skinny jeans in my hospital bag.

I had no idea my body would be so fragile after having a baby.

The next day, Mum went out and bought me some brand new Bridget Jones granny undies. The high-waist control briefs tightly pressed against my lost tummy.

"Your body still thinks it's pregnant, these will help you stand up straight," she said.

My centre of gravity had just shifted - metaphorically and physically.

It hurt to pee and I could barely sit down.

When I was sent home with my beautiful one-day-old baby, I was so high on new baby love and so clueless about what was "normal" healing for a new mother.

"When I had you Rachel, my legs were bruised all the way down to my knees," she said.

"Half my body looked like it'd been in a car accident," she added.

The cone of silence had finally been lifted. I was now in the after-birth club.

I asked my grandmother, who has seven children, why we aren't told the truth about birth.

"Nobody would do it, would they?" she said.

She feels sorry for the young lasses who are sent home from the hospital so quick. Back in her day, she had seven days to recover in hospital.

Two generations ago, women got to rest for a week before going home to pretend everything was fine.

Baby Charlie stretching my heart. Image supplied.

The details of giving birth have always been taboo.

Poet and Broadcaster Hollie McNish says it is one of the "biggest and most damaging taboos we have - not just a taboo for previous generations, but one that still exists today".

In an article for the BBC, McNish says her 90-year-old grandma thought that her first two children might have been born out of her bottom.

It was 70 years ago, no blood was mentioned and McNish says the word vagina was almost "sinful" to think about.

"My grandma didn't know about birth because nobody would tell her. And nobody would tell her, she said, because it was deemed too vulgar a subject for anyone to talk about," McNish said.

"She didn't ask any questions for the same reason. It was 'unladylike'," she added.

Months after having my son I was gifted a library of birth stories as raw as the injuries - from friends, co-workers and relatives.

It seems you need your own birth story to be admitted into the secret world of after-birth.

Watching episodes of One Born Every Minute and attending pre-natal classes with natural birth massage plans is not quite adequate preparation for the after-birth reality.

I wish I knew the after-birth club existed before having a baby, I would have tried to sneak in