HALIFAX - A mother whose baby died two years ago testified Wednesday that her former partner violently pulled her hair in an argument just two days after she gave birth to their child.

Jane Gomes, a 25-year-old from Bangladesh, told a judge-only trial that Ashiqur Rahman had been brooding over a hospital bill for the child's birth and they argued after returning to their messy Halifax rooming house.

She said she was upset about the chaotic state of their apartment and criticized Rahman.

"He suddenly got angry and he lost his temper," she told Crown prosecutor Denise Smith. "He pulled my hair with his right hand. He said I was arguing too much."

Gomes said she was shocked and feared he would continue to physically abuse her.

"I said, 'You stopped because I was pregnant all this time and now that I have (the baby) you think you can do it again to me,"' she testified.

Rahman, 25, is on trial in Nova Scotia Supreme Court for manslaughter and aggravated assault in the death of his seven-week-old daughter, Aurora Breakthrough, in July 2009.

Gomes pleaded guilty earlier this year to failing to provide the necessities of life in Aurora's death. She received a conditional discharge with six months of probation.

The trial has already heard a neuropathologist's testimony that Aurora had extensive brain injuries that occurred over the few weeks prior to her death.

Gomes's testimony Wednesday only dealt with the baby's first weeks out of hospital and she has yet to be questioned about whether the father mistreated the child.

Her first day on the stand gave a detailed reconstruction of how Gomes came to Canada, the relationship she developed with Rahman, and the child's birth and early weeks of life.

She described her early life as a scholarship student at a Roman Catholic girl's school in Bangladesh, her decision to study for a computer science degree at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., and her initially happy relationship with Rahman.

Her voice wavered as she described her increasing isolation from her family in Bangladesh after she fell in love with Rahman and moved in with the fellow computer science student.

She said she hid the relationship from her parents and gradually spent less time talking to them on the phone.

Gomes said that when the couple ended their studies and moved to Halifax, she didn't give her parents her new telephone number and lied to them about leaving school.

She stopped taking birth control pills in the fall of 2008 and realized she was pregnant in the winter of 2009.

Aurora's birth was described as a moment of joy amidst growing troubles for the couple, as Rahman's attempts to start an online business failed to bring income into the household.

Gomes testified that they were running out of money their parents had sent.

"I breastfed her and that's the most exciting moment of my life," she said, breaking down and crying on the stand.

"She was really tiny, very beautiful. Just seeing her made me feel so strong and no matter what the other issues were in that time in our life, I felt we could do it."

Rahman sat behind his lawyer and took notes and sometimes doodled on a yellow, legal note pad as Gomes testified.

Gomes told the court that while Rahman helped change the baby and occasionally picked her up, he was more preoccupied with attempting to start his computer business.

"Ashiqur seemed to love her," she said. "He would make comments on how cute she was and sometimes pick her up, but still his central focus was on his work.

"Sometimes I would see the father, the Dad, in him. But the joy of being a parent, that was somehow missing."