I would talk to your doctor, gp or even your ob/gyn. My ob/gyn is terrific at understanding what women go through with hormones and otherwise. Hormones significantly impact mood. They may also choose to check your thyroid which depression and anxiety can be tied to. A good physical where you look at everything is helpful. Moms tend to put everyone before themselves. We get less sleep, we exercise less than we should, we don't always eat the best. All of that factors in and if you have stressful things happen on top of that, it can spiral.
And as someone who lost a parent at a young age, I can tell you that anxiety is pretty normal after that. I'm more afraid people will get into accidents and it will happen suddenly because of my experience so I drive my husband nuts checking in with him when he's catching flights for work. He knows to call me when his plane lands. :>) Or else I think he is dead automatically. (I'm not easy to live with.)
I read an article on scary mommy that said "it's so annoying when people tell moms that they have to take time to take care of themselves"-- I have had that said to me more than once and yes, a little annoying. Probably because it is totally true. Take some time for you! hugs
You say you have two babes, but are they recent? Are you breast feeding? Or are you saying you have two kids, not two infants? Just to make sure, because breast feeding and antidepressants are a bit tricky. They get into the kids that way. There also might be hormonal stuff going on if the birth was recent, and there's no antidepressant made that will do anything about that. They can make you feel better if you stay on them long enough for them to start working, and there's a new one that's incredibly expensive just for post-partum depression, but again, they don't fix the underlying hormonal imbalance and then you're on the med for a long time. But one thing I don't hear you say is you're thinking anxious thoughts. People with GAD or panic attacks, as mention in a post above, don't just have physiological symptoms, the sympt0ms are a result of bad chronic anxious thoughts. If you're just having physiological symptoms then it's probably not anxiety. I also wonder if your heart rate is actually up or if it just seems like it is -- a lot of people post on here that they're having increased heart rate but constant trips to docs never show that it's actually happening. So the first thing to know is, are you actually anxious? From your post it doesn't sound like it, but it could be you just didn't say you were thinking a lot of anxious thoughts all the time. Because my first thought given you didn't mention you were feeling irrationally afraid but were just having these symptoms was it sounds like something hormonal or a nutritional deficiency or something more like that. More info would help us give more input.
Ahh, sweetie, I'm sorry to hear this. You are in a rough time of life. How old are your little ones? Mine were close together and I had this weird phenomenon due to having one not so great sleeper that when I was drifting off to sleep, I would hear a baby screaming and crying. Wasn't really happening. But I heard it every time I laid down. I mean, really. It was awful and likely exhaustion and anxiety. I'm sorry you are having trouble like this and I'm sorry that thus far the treatment you've received hasn't helped. The thing with antidepressants is it can be important depending on which one they try to titrate up (as in go up in dose slowly). They 'can' be activating and increase anxiety initially but this often will peter out as your body gets used to the med. If you go up slowly in dose, it can help you get to a therapeutic level that treats the anxiety . . . and wouldn't that be great?! So, which meds did they try you on and how was it dosed?
What do you have for mom respite care? I had a mother's helper that came over and played with my kids and I'd go to my room, take a shower, read, nap, rest and have a bit of ME time. And once a week on either Saturday or Sunday, husband was in charge and I was kid free. This brought down my anxiety level a great bit and helped me get a bit of rest/recharge my batteries. Trading sitting with a friend (you watch her kids for a bit one time and then she watches yours) can be a help too.
There are the lifestyle things that can help such as exercise. You can do that at home. You can do relaxing yoga too at home with youtube or a dvd. Learning deep breathing. Keeping a journal of triggers.
Anyway, I feel for you. Hang in there!
Your doctor should rule out other possibilities, but this could be anxiety. Usually anxiety and that "fight or flight"feeling cause havoc at bedtime. It's unusual that you sleep so well. GAD causes milder,but more constant anxiety. Panic attacks are intense but get over more quickly. I hope you find the right doctor to take this journey with you.