Was he possibly feeling overwhelmed?

Have you asked him at all did he not think that you were tired too?

To have my little girl I had to be induced which took 5 days!  My partner was there occasionally but not as much as I would have liked him to be.  On the final day - the day of birth he was there in the morning with a cold (man flu) but this was around the big hype of Swine flu, and he really wasn't helping himself with making it look ok, so he left me all day to go through the process leading up to birth - thankfully my mum was there with me.  He did come back for the birth and he saw our daughter arrive but by this time it already felt as though my mum was my main birthing partner.  I was upset but never really told him - i always find it hard to dicuss emotional things like this with him but wish I had as he now sees it as it was my mum who took over - if she hadn't i would have gone through it alone! 

The only thing that i see now that makes things a bit better is that you now have a wonderful wonderful gift - your child and your husband has missed out of that special first day, he will probably regret it later, is this your first child?