If you can shut her in one room or at least close doors to rooms you don`t want her in, you could try leaving for an hour and gradually expand the time and the freedom she`s allowed if she proves she can handle it (no accidents or destruction while you`re gone). You will probably find theres a limit to the time you can trust her and there may be some rooms you want to always close off when you`re gone. My old dog would probably burst rather than potty in the house, but the younger one I`ve never left longer than the length of a school day a few times. I wouldn`t want to make them stay in longer than that anyway. They generally just sleep most of the time if they are in the house alone.
Are you planning on having her sleep in the crate forever or just until she`s reliably potty trained? She might chose to sleep there anyway, but unless you really want her to stay in, you could try closing your bedroom door to keep her in there and letting her out of the crate at night. That doesn`t mean you have to let her in your bed if you don`t want, but the whining would probably stop if you let her out. You still should let her out during the night as you have been, but she would probably see the bedroom as her den eventually and not do anything but sleep in there
Our Lola slept in a crate the first few months we had her, but she never really liked it. She grew out of her crate, so we took a chance to let her sleep in our room before we decided about getting a bigger one. She sleeps on the floor now mostly in our room and does fine. She did have a couple of accidents in the hallway at night but never in our room. I take her out late at night and DH gets up early and lets her out so she`s been good for quite awhile now (she is about 18 months).
It sounds like you are really doing well with Valentine. Good luck with everything.