Death...by Birth?

I still cannot decide. Did Edna die at the end of The Awakening? Or did she simply walk into a better, freer life? The "seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting" voice of the sea calls to Edna, urging her to jump in. Because of all of this sea imagery, I am currently leaning more towards the belief that Edna died. However, I don't necessarily believe that she committed suicide. Rather, I feel like she let herself die. She let herself drown. "Her arms and legs were growing tired," Chopin writes, then goes back to narrating Edna's thoughts. Never does she even mention Edna fighting back against this weariness; instead, by thinking of all of the "failures" in Edna's life, all the incidents and people who have given her trouble, she only weighs herself down more, almost as if she is preparing to let herself drown, let the water rush over her head and push her to the bottom of the ocean.
We have talked frequently of how Edna is regressing into childhood. If she is regressing, her death must then, paradoxically, be her birth. The sea and bathing motifs are prevalent throughout the novel, and I found it convincing that a mother's womb is filled with--not exactly water--but fluid, nonetheless. Liquid. Perhaps the sea is Edna's mother, and she is experiencing birth once more. Or perhaps she was never born. I pull out my hair thinking of theories; there are so many! Chopin even alludes to Edna's death-birth when she describes Edna's naked form as a "new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known." It is interesting, however, that the word is "familiar," yet Edna, this "new-born creature," had never known it. Perhaps this was Edna's grand awakening. Perhaps Edna's awakening did not regard her place in society, nor did it regard her role as a wife, or even a woman or mother. Perhaps Edna's awakening was that she could never escape her roles, that the only way out was truly death.
On another note, if Edna's death is her birth, I found it interesting that she is awakening to birth. Sleep is an important motif throughout the novel, and I have been wondering whether sleep is really necessary for Edna to awaken. Sure, for most people, awakening only occurs after sleep, but I often felt that Edna slept for the purpose of awakening. She comments to Doctor Mandelet, "perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life." Though Edna realizes that her awakening(s) often giver her more emotional turmoil, she is willing to sacrifice this turmoil for a chance to better understand her world.
After this lengthy discussion, I still cannot firmly state that Edna died. Her wandering into the ocean could just have been another of her periods of sleep and turmoil, and she may finally awaken and go on with her life. Get her act together.
The last chapter can certainly be read both ways, and perhaps Kate Chopin intended it to be so. Maybe, in her view, both are one and the same.