Wordpress grab first paragraph

<?php
//=========================================================== Grab first paragraph (two if first is not long enough)
function get_first_two_paragraphs(){
	global $post;
    $str = wpautop( get_the_content() );
    $psToGrab = 2; // number of paragraphs to get
    $maxFirstParaLength = 200; // character max in first paragraph
    $matches = array(); // matching elements will go here
    $pattern = '%<p[^>]*>(.*?)</p>%i'; // match what's between all <p> tags
    preg_match_all($pattern, $str, $matches); // do the regex match
    $outparts = array_slice($matches[1], 0, $psToGrab); // chop off everything after the first 2 elements
    
	$out = "";
    foreach($outparts as $part) {
        $toKeep = "<b><strong><em>";
        $out .= strip_tags($part, $toKeep).' '; 
        if(strlen($out) > $maxFirstParaLength) {
            break;
        }
    }
    return $out;
}