Hmm. If you feel emotional about killing her, that bodes well for your writing as it indicates she's a convincing character in whom you're emotionally invested - so in theory her death will have an emotional impact on your readers, which is exactly what you want.
You don't say what genre your book is - if it's plot driven, you need to think about which outcome is best for your plot, if it's character-driven, can your victim add more to the story by continuing to live?
'Finding a workaround' doesn't sound ideal - when you make a change to your plot it should feel as though you're finding the right path, the one that makes sense, rather than contriving something.
The only time I have really regretted killing a character was when writing a series. It was absolutely right for her to die at the end of book one, but I found myself missing her in later books because I couldn't quite find a substitute for her.
As this is only your first draft, I think you would be safe to stay on track to kill her unless and until you find a better way for her to live - which you might do by the time you reach subsequent drafts.
(We writers sound like such psychopaths when we calmly discuss whether to kill people or not 
)