Looking for alternative to reload()

I have a parent page where I click a button to open a popup child page I get and authorization on the child page that is then saved to the database and after a reload the authorization is seen on the parent page. The reload can take way too long when things are slow on our hosted site. I'm hoping someone has an alternative to this slow process. Is it possible to do an ajax async postback on the parent page when the child page closes? If yes, how would that be done?

Here is what my reload script looks like:

//reload the parent window (refresh)

function window.onbeforeunload() {

opener.location.reload();

}
...