Transfer phone number of suspended phone to replacement phone

I suspended my stolen AT&T phone as advised.  The messaging did not say that I had to leave it active to transfer the phone number to a new device.  I got a replacement phone and sim card through Asurion (which further disables old phone).  I attempted the activation process and it fails when tries to connect to my account with that phone number.  I attempted to transfer my number through the AT&T site, and given my old device is suspended, it doesn't come up as a number/device I can select to transfer.   I just want the number. I cannot activate the new phone using my same phone number.  I tried to reactivate the old device/number, but it doesn't show as suspended for some reason so I cannot.  I did everything right, same as I would think many do in this situation.  The process doesn't work.  Must be others who suspend a missing or stolen phone, but want their phone number to remain active so they can then transfer the number to the new device.  This should be simple.  It is not!  If I lose this number, I also cannot get into icloud to get my last backup due to two-step verification using that number.  I need AT&T to transfer this number to the new SIM card.