Desparately Need Form, Checkbox Component Help

I have flash mx and I'm designing my contact page for my website to include a form. I am using 2 TextInput components for the name and email fields and 1 TextArea component for the comment field. I've also added a checkbox component for users to select if they would like to join my mailing list. This is where the problem lies. I can't get a result sent to my emailing informing me whether the user selected the checkbox component or not. How do I know if the user selected the "add me to your mailing list" checkbox component or not? Here's what

I've written this so far...

var gatherForm:LoadVars = new LoadVars ();
function sendForm() {
gatherForm.email_to = "spycesoul@msn.com";
gatherForm.visitor_comment = contactForm.userComments.text;
gatherForm.visitor_name = contactForm.userName.text;
gatherForm.visitor_email = contactForm.userEmail.text;
gatherForm.visitor_checkbox = contactForm.userCheckbox.text; (should the value not be .text for the checkbox field?)

gatherForm.send("http://us.3.p4.webhosting.msn.com/forms?login=spycesoul", "_blank", "POST");
}

no respsonse yet. oh well...