Pause timeline within a single slide

So I've been searching, but so far the blogs and replies I find are how to pause a slide before moving to the next slide only. I am looking specifically to pause my slide partway through. Worse case I will have to break this slide into multiple individual slides. Hopefully this is just user error?

For example:

An instructional slide has a three-stage example. Ideally, I would like to be able to show a graphic of stage 1, pause the timeline until a user clicks a continue button, the timeline plays through stage 2 then again pauses until a button is clicked, and so on. At the end of this sequence, then the next slide would play as normal.

I have used a button with the Pause After x value of time checked; however, the timeline does not pause. Oddly, the button itself does freeze to the slide but the slide itself continues to play. Clicking the paused button successfully removes the button from my screen, but that is not the intended action. My experience with this button Pause After option stops the slide. Does this only work at the end of a slide's timeline?

If so, what other options are there to pause a slide before reaching the actual end of the slide, to then continue after a user action to play the rest of the same slide?

I also tried Click Box based on a few blogs that I've found, but still this is end-of-slide context. I would really like to have an option to keep this series within the one slide. My reason is that this slide was an afterthought from the boss after the presentation has been completed. I am trying not to affect slide order and count if at all possible.

Thanks in advance for any help you may offer.

- Noel.