Trying to convert a GIF to MP4 (H.264) - AME removes all pauses in animation.

Not sure why AME is causing issues. Made a social media post on Photoshop CC (latest) that has several lines of text that animate in and pause for a few frames before continuing to next. Gif exports fine from Save as Legacy. When I try and convert a .gif to H.264 the end result removes all pauses in the animation which makes it difficult to read, but oddly doesn't make the end result any shorter. Original 14.8 seconds / export 14.8 seconds. I've even tried the online Adobe Express converter. Did the same thing.

Second issue is if I bring the .psd into media encoder to export straight to H.264 it completely obliterates the animation. Wrong scale text, incorrect positioning of elements that animate. Is there some setting I'm missing?

Any suggestions as to what I can do to get this to work?

Thanks for any help.